Turn the abundance of your garden into clever, creative garden crafts. The possibilities of transforming flowers, herbs and even vegetables into crafts are endless. From whimsical birdhouses made of gourds to elegant wreaths of preserved flowers, there is a craft for every taste. This year plan ahead and plant a few gourds, a patch of pumpkins and extra flowers for fun projects. After creating the garden crafts, tuck them away for gifts for family and friends.

Gourd Birdhouses

Creating a birdhouse for your feathered friends is a fun project for children and adults, and the key supplies can be found in your garden. Bottle gourds are long-necked gourds that look like a round bulb on the end of a long handle. Purchase seed from a reliable company and plant in the spring, following the instructions on the seed packet for planting, caring for and harvesting the gourds. Before you can begin turning the gourd into a birdhouse, it must be hung to dry. The drying process takes 30 to 60 days.

Once the gourd is completely dry, place it in a vice, padding the outside of the gourd to prevent damage. Use a drill with a small bit to create a hole at the top of the gourd neck, drilling completely through, to attach a hanger.

The next step requires a drill with a hole saw attachment. Eyeball the gourd and draw a 1- to 2-inch circle on the bulbous part of the gourd. Using the drill, cut an opening large enough for birds to enter. Clean out all the seeds, saving them for planting next year. If you want a perch, drill a hole the size of the dowel that will be inserted into the hole as the perch. Make sure the hole is slightly smaller than the dowel to create a tight fit.

Now the fun begins. Decorate the outside of the gourd birdhouse with acrylic paints or permanent markers. Paint vines, flowers, silly faces or whatever the imagination conjures for fun and fascinating birdhouses. You can also use a wood-burning set to decorate the outside for a natural look.

The final step involves giving the gourd several coats of varnish for protection from the elements. When the last coat of varnish dries, the birdhouse is ready to hang. Insert rope or wire through the hole in the neck, put out the vacancy sign, and wait for a feathered friend to take residence.

Give a birdhouse, along with a packet of gourd seeds or some birdseed, as a gift to a nature lover or someone who finds watching birds a pleasure.

Dried Flowers

Drying flowers is as easy as cutting, bundling and hanging in a dry, dark place. Almost any flower can be dried, but some dry more easily than others. Strawflowers, globe amaranth, baby’s breath, roses, lavender, tansy, yarrow, artemisias, annual statice, cock’s comb and larkspur are some of the easiest flowers to dry by hanging in bundles.

You can fashion arrangements, bouquets, tussie-mussies, garlands, swags and potpourri from preserved flowers. Use dried flowers in imaginative ways by creating petal pictures on paper, fashioning adorable napkin rings and crafting Christmas decorations for the home.

Create a Tussie-Mussie

A tussie-mussie is the Victorian name for a nosegay, or small bouquet of flowers, tucked into a holder. The holder for this project is a small doily or pretty handkerchief stiffened with paraffin. Melt paraffin in a pan and carefully dip the doily or handkerchief into the paraffin. Have waxed paper ready to set the paraffin-covered doily on. Form the doily into a cone shape or the handkerchief into an envelope with a pretty, peaked corner the back center while the paraffin is still pliable. Let the doily dry completely.

Once the cone or envelope dries, create an arrangement inside the cone using dried flowers. Place taller stems in the back and flowers with larger faces in the center for the focal point. Tall flowers like larkspur and “silver king” artemisia work well in the back, with strawflowers or roses in the center. Fill the tussie-mussie in with lavender, baby’s breath and tansy.

Fashion Fresh Flower Bouquets

Flower garden crafts can use fresh flowers as well as dried. Giving fresh bouquets delights family and friends with unexpected lovelies from the garden. Start by cutting the flowers with a sharp knife or scissors early in the morning before the sun dries the dew. Plunge the flower stems into a bucket of tepid water and set the bucket in a cool, dark place until you’re ready to make a bouquet.

Bouquets require no knowledge of floral design, making them one of the easy garden crafts. Place stems of flowers into a container filled with water in a pleasing manner. Varying the heights of stems adds dimension to the bouquet, but it is not necessary.

Be on the lookout for unusual vases and containers at second-hand shops, yard sales and flea markets. Any container that can hold water can become a vase. Items such as teapots, cups, old canning jars, sugar bowls, pitchers, boxes, clay pots and baskets all make unique containers.

Or you don’t even have to bother with a container – instead, wrap the stems in plastic wrap, enveloping the bouquet in tissue paper for a fresh flower gift you can take to a friend’s home.

Design Fresh Vegetable Arrangements

Gardening crafts are a good way to use the plethora of vegetables in the garden. Instead of adorning a table with fresh flowers, use vegetables to add flair to dining tables. In the fall, create an ever-changing vegetable arrangement in a cornucopia purchased from a craft store or florist shop. Place the cornucopia on a placemat or large glass plate.

Start with a larger vegetable, such as a pie pumpkin or large squash like Turk’s turban or acorn squash. Place the pumpkin or squash at the opening of the cornucopia, pushing it in until it fits snugly in place.

Next, lay smaller vegetables, such as the last red tomatoes, green beans from the second crop, potatoes

and dried sweet corn or popcorn, around the pumpkin. Place small vegetables on top of the pumpkin, too. Use tiny gourds and pumpkins to create a look of fall. A cluster of grapes, a few apples, and some nuts in their shells finish off the look. Any vegetable you have growing in the garden can be used. Just remember that fresh vegetables deteriorate, so replace them before they rot.

In the middle of summer, when vegetables are in abundance, make a vegetable pyramid using tomatoes on a round plate with a bed of kale or some other leafy vegetable. Form a sturdy base with tomatoes and then stack more on top until you achieve a cone shape. You can use toothpicks to hold them together. Tuck fresh green beans or pods of peas among the stacked tomatoes. This is a one party decoration that will not last long, especially if you use toothpicks, but it is quite striking for the duration of the party.

There are so many outdoor garden crafts that you and your children can have fun doing. Making fairy furniture with flowers, twigs, mosses, and seeds stirs the imagination. Allow a few vegetables and flowers to go to seed, then collect the seeds for creating seed pictures with glue and paper. Botanical papers can be made from flowers, leaves and all kinds of plant material. Every garden craft can become a gift to family and friends who will appreciate the unique nature of the offering.

Are You Green Thumb Material?

Did you help your parents take care of a garden when you were a child? Do you like the aromas that a garden cared for by someone with a green thumb provides? Do you stop to talk with the other green thumbs and look at the gardening section of the home improvement store? Are you more likely to bring every plant to glorious bloom or are you more likely to kill everything in sight? Take this quiz to see if you are ready for a nursery of your own.